Anne's Bavarian highlights tour

[Or I could have called this post:  See what you could have done if you'd come to visit us too... ;-) ]

It was really lovely to have Anne here for a week, and have a good excuse to revisit many favorite places, and to see some new!

In her preparation to come to Munich Anne read all about King Ludwig II, so we saw the castle in town where he was born, and two of the castles he built near the Alps (see below).  At the opposite end of the Bavarian history spectrum, Anne also motivated me to read "Sophie Scholl and the White Rose" which I'd highly recommend for anyone interested in learning about the student resistance movement against the Nazis (and I'll do a post on the Scholl siblings soon).  On Anne's first full day here, we went to Dachau (see post) and then saw the White Rose memorials at the university, but the rest of her visit was much lighter, and we had a lot of fun.

This will be mostly pictures, since I've written about much of this before  -- except for crazy Ludwig's crazy castles...



Schloss Nymphenburg:
This palace was the royal "summer residence", and Ludwig II was born here in 1845.

It's funny to think of a Bavarian king being a whole generation younger than, say, Abraham Lincoln.   He even had electricity and a phone installed in his Neuschwanstein Castle in the 1880s.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Here we are at Nymphenburg Castle, built in the 17th century, and looking a bit like a smaller Versailles,  gardens and all.

Inside Nymphenburg is an airy "Great Hall", decorated in a beautifully colorful Rococo style, as well as the lavishly decorated quarters of the royal family (first called Elector and Electress, then later, after Napoleon declared Bavaria a kingdom in 1806, Kings and Queens).

Julia took all the pictures inside the castle.
She's loving photography these days.

One of the most famous rooms in Nymphenburg is Ludwig I's "gallery of beauties" -- paintings of many women he found beautiful, either royalty or the shoemaker's daughter, or Lola Montez, who was the cause of Ludwig I's abdication in 1848...

That night we had to take Anne to the Bavarian Augustiner restaurant for a Schweinshaxe (pork knuckle).  It is the culinary "must do" for all our visitors... But it does taste good!

Then, Monday, on to Ludwig II's castles!  Anne was a good prod for us, since neither Thomas nor I had ever seen Neuschwanstein, the "fairy-tale" castle on which Disney based his Sleeping Beauty version.  Linderhof Castle, is also nearby (which Thomas had taken me to on my first trip to Europe 17 years ago), and since we'd rented a car, we enjoyed a beautiful day visiting both of these spectacular castles.




Schloss Neuschwanstein:

Our first view.

There are so many tourists who want to see Neuschwanstein, that you have to buy tickets in advance for your exact tour, which are 5 minutes apart.  (Luckily we spared ourselves from a big line by reserving over the internet in advance.)

Ludwig II started building this castle, overlooking his parents' castle Hohenschwangau, in 1869.  It was never completely finished (construction stopped with his death in 1886) but it was worthy enough by the early 1880s for him to move in.

No pictures were allowed inside, but it is quite an amazing place -- almost every wall is decorated in frescoes of legends featured in Wagner's operas. (He adored Wagner.)  There are also many swans, which was his favorite creature.  The unfinished throne room -- which has everything but a throne -- is stunning, as is the "singer's hall" meant for private concerts.

One of the crazy things I remember in there is a dark hallway, mimicking a cave, fake rock walls and all, in order to provide a romantic grotto...



Ludwig couldn't have picked a better location.  The view, with mountains on one side and a beautiful plain with a lake on the other, is stunning.

That's his parent's castle, Hohenschwangau, down there on the hill.
Just far enough away to avoid reality (and his mother).

Here's a quote from Ludwig II in a letter to Wagner:
"This castle will be in every way more beautiful and habitable than Hohenschwangau further down, which is desecrated every year by the prose of my mother..."











Schloss Linderhof:
This is my favorite castle.  Relatively small and intimate, but with beautiful grounds and fountains.

 Again, no pictures were allowed inside, but the palace is stunning, especially the hall of mirrors (with beautifully adorned mirrors on opposite parallel walls, making the relatively small room look like an infinite hallway).

 One of the crazy things inside this castle is Ludwig's private dining table, which was lowered through the floor to the kitchen three floors below for every change of course.  He was a loner, and didn't even want servants watching him eat... not that that stopped him from enjoying several-course meals.  Apparently the staff still had to lay the table for several people, since the king talked with his imaginary friends, like the former kings of France, or Marie Antoinette.  (Looking at all his decadence, I guess he didn't learn much from, or about, the French Revolution...)

The best part of the Linderhof grounds is the Venus Grotto.  Built essentially for private but elaborate productions of Wagner operas, it featured the first electrical lighting in Bavaria, and a heated underground lake (which was part of the "set"so that some of the opera singers might swim as they performed...)

The king's seat in the rocky wall
 facing the "stage".  The audience
was simply him and a few servants.

This grotto is unbelievable.  But cool.





The Garmisch classic hike:
We call our excursion into the Alps, which starts in the mountain resort area of Garmish-Partenkirchen, our "classic" and the seemingly great weather provided opportunity to show Anne our favorite hike.

We started off with a gondola lift which got us up to about 1230 m (a 500 meter difference from the town) and we were almost immediately in an alpine paradise, especially this time of year with many wildflowers.

That's a month which just looks like a hummingbird.
(Thomas' picture)

This hike takes about 4 hours but is not difficult.  It has a very high ratio of reward per exertion!

We had a good view on the Alpspitze (2826 m) for much of the hike.  (I still can't believe Benjamin and I were on
top of that last August...)

Hiking in the Alps is so civilized.  You can easily plan your route to include a stop at a Hütte with hot lunch...

After lunch the clouds started to look a little ominous.
Luckily we only had a brief shower, mostly while we were in the trees.

The Partnachklam (gorge) on the way back down to town makes you feel a little like a traveler in a Tolkien adventure..

Another wonderful, if tiring, day.  Thanks, Anne, for visiting!

It's hard to stay awake on the train after a day in the mountains!